Maurice – Forster’s Long-Suppressed Gay Classic and Its Quietly Radical Ending

A Love Story That Had to Wait for the Right Century

E.M. Forster wrote Maurice in the early 20th century but refused to publish it during his lifetime. He did not want “a story with a happy ending” about two men to appear while homosexuality was still illegal in Britain. When the novel finally reached readers posthumously, and later gained a lush film adaptation, it felt like a message sent forward in time: “This is the ending I wanted for us, even when the law would not allow it.”